‘"Carpe per diem - seize the cheque" (Robin Williams)

As I’ve said in previous posts, if our French Dream is to last beyond our first year then we have to find a way of earning a few euros. We are not alone amongst those moving to France these days - so many of us choose not simply to retire here but to actively seek out a new way of life in this wonderful area of the world long before drawing a pension.

My French language abilities are just not good enough at this stage to consider looking for salaried employment so self employment is the best bet. What to do though?

Could I earn money as a writer? Whilst it has always appealed I’ve never done it before and this blog is my first attempt. (Perhaps you, dear reader, can tell me if it is an option worth pursuing? Be gentle with me please J) And in reality I have no understanding of how the media works and how to make money out of writing, let alone what I should write about!

Perhaps an internet based business would work since the internet allows anyone to be an entrepreneur and to reach a global customer base (they say!). What products could I sell? Here are just some of my ideas:

• French Antiques - but I know nothing about them
• Batteries and memory cards for cameras - too much competition
• French cheese - too smelly
• French artisan soaps - too smelly 

Lovely French Cheese - but very smelly!

Another idea we considered was as a result of talking to a lady called Sally Stone at one of the French Property Shows we visited. She was offering people the opportunity to buy a franchise in her business called ‘Les Bons Voisins’ (Good Neighbours it means in English and every time I hear it I start singing “Everybody needs good neigh…...bours” in an Australian accent – bet you did too!). It’s a great concept, offering caretaking services to second-home owners and property management for absent gite owners. We were very tempted but ultimately, to be passionate about a business, you have to do something you love doing and we just felt that cleaning houses and changing bedsheets seemed like doing more of the things that we disliked doing in our own home!

Purchasing an existing business is another option but again, what to do that would make best use of our meager talents? We are not vivacious party people so running a bar is out. I love cooking but there is a massive difference between making a tasty casserole for the family to running a restaurant. 

Day boat business for sale in Brittany

One ‘business for sale’ advert that did catch my eye was a small day-boat hire business – perfect until I realised that it was in Brittany rather than the Perigord Vert!

The simple reality is that it is better to start a new business by utilising your existing skills and experience. That left two options; something that utilised my 25 years of experience in human resource management – but I’d had enough of that kind of work, that’s why we came to France, and my French language skills would be a very limiting factor; or something based on my love of photography and the work I had been doing on a hobby basis for an estate agent friend of mine in the UK.

The latter came about in 2008 when I had purchased a licence to use some technology that enabled me to produce virtual tours. Working at weekends and on summer evenings I would visit properties for sale and capture the images required to develop the virtual tour. Over time I started to do more and produced still photographs, floorplans, property details (you know the kind of thing, “A deceptively spacious broom cupboard in a highly desirable area of Runcorn”) and on-line brochures. Eventually I was able to work four days a week in HR and do my photography work on Wednesdays as well. I absolutely loved it! Below are a couple of examples of photos I took in England:

Is there a market for this kind of service in France? Our own research and experience suggests there is. Just take a look at a typical immobilier’s web site (and we’ve looked at a lot during the course of our house hunting) and you will be lucky to see three or four grainy photos. Given the way that most house hunters use the internet for their initial research, that is simply not good enough in this day and age.

Our view was supported by a number of estate agents we had spoken to at the Property Exhibitions and they were keen to know more, but of course they were never going to commit to working with someone who was still based in Cheshire. Well we’re in France now, so here goes…..

The Goldilocks Decision

Having made the momentous decision that 2012 was going to be the year in which we would to turn our dreams into reality, the next big question was to decide in which of France’s many and varied regions we wanted to make our new home?

I guess like so many who have made the move before us we were inevitably attracted to the French regions where we had previously enjoyed our holidays. For us this included Normandy, Provence, Limousin, Aquitaine, Burgundy and Ile de France (Paris to be precise).

Each of these areas had left their impact on us: cruising along the gentle River Saone on a family boating holiday; sipping red wine on a summer’s evening in the gite garden whilst watching the mellow Limousin cattle munching grass; gazing at Isabelle’s long, tanned limbs as she lay by the pool (did I mention that before?); watching our daughter run naked through the fountains of the Parc Citroen (not a drunken student prank this one, she was only 7 at the time to be fair!); having our car broken into and our passports stolen whilst we visited a war cemetery near Caen (I'm afraid that memory put Normandy out of the running - unfair I know but the emotions of that day still linger).

We had also been subscribing to magazines like Living France and French Property News for several years and we had read countless articles describing life in every area of France. The problem of course is that everywhere sounded wonderful; no one was going to write about their chosen home in anything but glowing terms.

So we started with the Goldilocks decision making process.

Provence in the South – way too hot for us.

Brittany and Normandy in the North – an Atlantic climate too much like the UK.

The ‘middle bit’ around Limoges – just right.

Paris – great for a visit but much too busy and clogged up for us, not to mention way too expensive. The Creuse and Correze departments of the Limousin offered some of the cheapest property in France but their remoteness perhaps didn’t offer us the best opportunity to implement our business ideas (more of which in a later post!). The departments to the south and west of Limoges (Dordogne, Haute Vienne and Charente) – just right.

Of course, these three departments cover a huge area so we started to narrow it down using transport links as a guide – we marked on a map all the airports within two hours of the region which offered flights to the UK and we took note of where the TGV stopped off as it raced south. What started to emerge as a target area for us was the Parc Naturel Regional Perigord Limousin with Limoges Airport close by and the airports of Bergerac, Poitiers and even Bordeaux within striking distance. The excellent TGV service allowed Paris to be reached in less than three hours from Angouleme to the west.

The Parc Naturel Regional Perigord Limousin covers a large area but as we read more about the region it became clear that the section of countryside known as the Perigord Vert would suit us very nicely.

Lush, green countryside dotted with little hamlets and bustling market towns. Lots of beautiful deciduous woodland interspersed with meadows grazed by gentle herds of cattle. And above all, we knew from previous trips that it offered us the peace and tranquility that we so desperately sought.

The Perigord Vert is primarily encapsulated within the Dordogne department. Whilst it has unfortunately developed something of a ‘Dordogneshire’ reputation because of the number of English people living in the area, we knew that this rural area was still quintessentially French and conservative in its outlook and we had only ever encountered extremely welcoming and hospitable natives. Beside which, we were not looking to get drawn in to the “Expat Community” who still get their groceries delivered by Asda, play cricket at the weekend and go in search of fish and chips on a Friday night - we wanted to move to France because we saw a more fulfilling was to live life and we wanted to make friendships with the French, to learn from them and to immerse ourselves in the local culture.

With property prices well below the French national average we realized we might achieve our dream to live mortgage free in a tranquil cottage on the edge of a village with space around us to breathe and an acre or two of land for the dogs to roam free on. We also knew we would have to find a way to make a living and it appeared that this was an area that would suit what we had in mind as a business (not telling you more yet, you’re going to have to wait!).

On my wall at home in the UK, I pinned a map of the area we had now decided to focus on (see below) and started to absorb the detail of the towns, the topography, the main routes and the places of interest. I started to turn the dream into a clearer vision of where we were going to make our new life – then I started to plan in detail how we were going to make this happen. I’ll tell you about that next time though!